What is it you're looking for?

Compassion in World Farming Privacy and Security Policy

on this page

1. Introduction

At Compassion in World Farming (Compassion) we are committed to protecting the privacy of your personal data. Any personal data that you share with us will be kept safe and secure. We want to be clear about how and when we collect data from you and how and why we use it. This Privacy Policy explains in detail the types of data we may collect about you and how we will use and store your personal data.

We would suggest that you read this Privacy Policy carefully to ensure that you are well informed about and understand our practices. We may from time to time update this notice, so please do take the time to check it regularly. If we are in regular contact with you and there are significant updates we will inform you.

2. Who is Compassion in World Farming International?

Compassion in World Farming is a registered charity in England and Wales (registered charity number 1095050) and a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales (registered company number 4590804).

Compassion in World Farming is based at: River Court, Mill Lane, Godalming GU7 1EZ, UK.

Compassion in World Farming has also founded separate charitable entities in a number of other countries to enable us to more effectively drive our programme of work. All of these are founded, controlled and managed by and under the umbrella of Compassion in World Farming International.

3. What Personal Data Do We Collect?

The type of personal information that we could collect about you includes:

Name & Title

Job title

Company name

Phone number

Email address

IP Address

Photographs or digital images (e.g. in photos taken at Compassion events)

How we communicate with you and any preferences you may have

Details of any contact that we may have with you

4. Cookies

Cookies are small text files on your computer, smart phone, tablet or other device. They are made by your web-browser when you visit a website. Every time you go back to that website, your browser will send the cookie file back to the website’s server. Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences and generally improving the user experience.

Cookies help Compassion identify which bits of our website people are using, and help us to improve the user experience. Information supplied in cookies also allows us to measure the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns for Compassion so that we can become more efficient.

A cookie, by itself, can’t be used to identify you; we cannot and do not link it with personal information we hold about you (e.g. your name, email address). For more information about how our website uses cookies click here.

5. How and Why Do We Use Your Personal Data?

We use your data for the following purposes:

To respond to any correspondence you enter into with us and to keep a record of our relationship.

To keep you updated on the work that we are doing.

To ensure we act on any requests you make about how we do/don’t contact you.

To help us analyse and understand our audiences.

To allow us to verify your identity if we are required to do so, to be able to comply with laws and regulations, to protect our business and your personal data from fraudulent activities.

For research and analysis, to help us to increase our food business audiences. Where research requires your direct involvement, participation will always be optional.

To comply with our legal obligations and to share data with law enforcement agencies if required to do so.

6. What are the Legal Bases that We Use to Process Your Personal Data?

Consent: We use consent to send you our newsletter, where we have asked you to ‘opt-in’.

Legal Obligation: We need to retain and use certain records to uphold the law and to satisfy legal, regulatory and compliance obligations.

Legitimate Interest: We may collect and use data where this is reasonably necessary for our legitimate interests. Such processing will be fair, balanced and will not unduly impact on your rights as an individual. For example, there may be times when it is not practical or appropriate to ask for your consent and where we are confident this will not impact on your rights.

Our legitimate interests include providing food business news and information with food companies to encourage and facilitate the move to higher welfare farming systems. In support of these legitimate interests we may collect or process personal data in the following ways:

For administration and governance activities related to Compassion and its entities

To record and respond to any correspondence you enter into with us

To send you regular events emails and newsletters (you can opt out of these communications at any time)

To contact, by email or phone, some very specific audiences relevant to our work (e.g. employees/representatives of food companies, Trusts & Foundations)

For research and analysis to help us understand our audience; improve our sustainable food production movement.

In certain circumstances, to undertake research on individuals before we proactively contact them

To better our efforts against fraud

7. When and How Do We Collect Your Data?

We collect your data when you contact us directly or interact with us via a third party to:

Make an enquiry to us

Sign up to receive our newsletter

Engage with us on social media

Attend an event

Connect with us online

In certain circumstances, we will conduct our own research and gather information that is available within the public domain. There is a certain amount of publicly available information from sources such as social media, published articles and news channels. We would use this information to improve our communications and corporate engagement approaches.

When you are engaging with Compassion through a third party, please also check their Privacy Policy.

8. Marketing

The aim of Compassion’s Food Business team is to place farm animal welfare at the heart of the food industry. To do this we communicate with retailers, manufacturers, producers and food service companies to encourage participation in our work. We communicate with you in a variety of ways

BY EMAIL, SMS & PHONE: We will send communications by these channels if you have given consent for us to do so or if we feel that our interaction would be beneficial to your organisation. As is your right you can withdraw from any communication at any time. All our emails will include an unsubscribe link, and you can also contact us via the details in section 14.

BY POST: We may send you information in the post on the basis of our legitimate interests. You will not receive mail from us if you have specifically requested not to. If you would prefer NOT to receive communications from us in the post, you can let us know via the form included with any of our letters, or by contacting us directly (see section 14). Please note your preferences may not be updated immediately, but we will aim to process your request within 28 days.

BY SOCIAL MEDIAL ADVERTSING: If you are a social media user, we may use tools provided by the leading social media platforms, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, to reach our food business audiences. If you have participated in our work and haven’t opted out, we may contact you via social media advertising. We may also use your profile anonymously, and in conjunction with many other profiles, to identify audiences that are also likely to engage with us and thereby help us achieve our charitable mission and food business objectives.

9. How Long Do we Keep Your Data?

Your data is retained for as long as is necessary for the purpose that it was collected for. We are obliged to keep certain data to fulfil certain legal obligations and matters of record keeping e.g. financial records which we are required to keep for 6 years. Any data that is retained is minimised to ensure that we are keeping only that which is required. We will securely delete all data when it is no longer required.

10. Sharing Your Data

We will not sell or swap your personal data; and it is Compassion’s policy never to pass on your personal details to other organisations for their use, except when we have your express permission to do so or when the law requires it.

At Compassion we work with contracted suppliers and where applicable we will share your information. Your data will only to be used under our explicit instructions and only for the purposes we specify, to carry out necessary operations for us, such as send letters or process financial transactions. All of our suppliers are trusted and have signed agreements with us, each of them agreeing to respect the security of your personal data in accordance with data protection laws. With all third party suppliers we have reviewed their policies and procedures and are content with the level of their GDPR compliance, we are satisfied that their systems are secure. In the event that we stop using a supplier, any of your data that they hold will be securely deleted.

There may be a need to disclose your personal data upon request to regulatory and government bodies as well as law enforcement agencies.

11. Children & Vulnerable Individuals

Protecting children

Compassion in World Farming is committed to protecting the privacy of children. Although we are not responsible for determining the age of website visitors, our websites are primarily designed and intended for use by people ages 16 and over. If you are younger than this you should review the terms of this Privacy Policy with your parent or guardian to make sure that you both understand them. No information should be submitted to our website, or communication entered into with Compassion, by children without parental consent. All applicable laws are followed with respect to data collection from children.

NB Parents and Guardians should be aware that, owing to the nature of our work, images (e.g. the carefully considered use of photographs of dead, dying or otherwise suffering animals) on Compassion in World Farming websites or used in our communications may be considered unsuitable for children.

Protecting supporters in vulnerable circumstances

We’re committed to offering the very best standards of supporter care and protecting our supporters’ privacy, dignity and wellbeing. If we believe that a supporter may be in vulnerable circumstances that could affect their capacity to make a decision about supporting us financially, or in other ways, we will do all we can to protect that supporter. See our policy for assisting supporters in vulnerable circumstances here.

12. Your Rights

We want to ensure that your rights are upheld when we use and store the information you give to us.

Accessing the information that we hold on you – Subject Access Request

You can request a copy of the information that we have on you. This will be free of charge in most cases. Please let us have details of the personal data you want to see and proof of your identity. You can send an email to access@ciwf.org or write to us at Data Access Request, Supporter Engagement Team, River Court, Mill Lane, Godalming, GU7 1EZ, UK.

Correcting the information that we hold on you

If your personal information is out of date or is incorrect, we will correct it for you on request.

Erasing your personal data from our records

Simply let us know and we will delete your details from our database. This will mean that all records of you will be erased. Please note, for legal reasons we may be required to keep certain information e.g. in the case of financial details, where we are duty bound to keep these on file for 6 years.

Opting-out of all marketing communications

We will stop all communications via a specific channel, on request. If you have given us consent you can withdraw your consent at any time. We aim to update your record within 28 days.

Restricting the processing that we do

If you do not wish your information to be used for the purposes of screening or profiling, let us know. We aim to update your record within 28 days.

Using your information elsewhere

On request, we will provide you (or a third party you nominate) with your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

If you feel that your data is not being managed in an appropriate manner, you can raise a concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office. You can also find general information from the ICO here: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public

13. How We Keep Your Data Safe

As an organisation we are committed to keeping your data safe. Your personal data is stored on a secure network; we regularly monitor our systems for vulnerabilities. Access to your data is closely monitored; it is only accessible by staff, volunteers and contractors who are bound by appropriate policies and procedures to protect your information.

We will review the policies and procedures of any third parties that we deal with, and ensure they are GDPR compliant.

14. Your Data Manager Contact at Compassion in World Farming

If you wish to contact Compassion in World Farming in respect of our Privacy Policy or data management, e.g. gaining access to your data, or having a correction made, please contact our Data Manager by the following means:

15. Transferring Your Data

Compassion in World Farming International operates a network across Europe and has an office in the USA. All of our data is stored within the EU and Canada. By submitting your data to Compassion you are agreeing to this transfer, storing and processing. There are some instances where your data may be shared across our network; however data from the EU would not be processed within the USA. If you are interacting with Compassion USA, your data will be transferred, processed and stored within our secure servers in the EU and Canada.

Call us

Email us

Useful links

This site uses cookies to improve your user experience. By using this site you agree to these cookies being set. To find out more see our cookies policy.

You are using an outdated browserwhich we do not support. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience and security.

If you have any further questions regarding this, or any other matter, please get in touch with us at supporters@ciwf.org.uk. We aim to respond to all queries within two working days. However, due to the high volume of correspondence that we receive, it may occasionally take a little longer. Please do bear with us if this is the case. Alternatively, if your query is urgent, you can contact our Supporter Engagement Team on +44 (0)1483 521 953 (lines open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm).